


Through and Through

by Arsenic



Series: North [5]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-10
Updated: 2007-03-10
Packaged: 2020-05-07 05:44:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19203088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arsenic/pseuds/Arsenic
Summary: Ronon takes John up on his offer.





	Through and Through

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Idyll, because she had a bad week. Month, really. 2007 so far, to be honest.
> 
> Another one of the North series, follows on "Symbolic".

Ronon wakes from the nightmare about the Wraith taking John and goes for a run around the city. The nightmare is familiar, which makes it neither better nor worse, simply familiar. It is less frightening than the one where John is a Wraith, more frightening than the one where the Wraith recapture him. Ronon does not know if his first recapture has dulled that threat, or if he has come to handle certain types of helplessness better than others.

It doesn't matter.

His heart is still pounding--and not from the exertion--after his circuit of the city, so he goes for another one and somewhere along the way, John catches up.

John says, "I thought we were starting at the gym."

"What time is it?" Ronon asks.

John mutters, "Yeah, roger that."

Ronon hasn't completely gotten used to the way Earthians use expressions for different things in different contexts, but he's starting to catch on. "Sorry," he says, not really all that sorry. "Lost track of time."

"How many times does this make?"

"Only two."

"Okay, well. That's sort of like improvement."

"Fuck off," Ronon tells him. Curses and insults are always the easiest part of any culture to grasp onto.

"Really?" John challenges.

Ronon doesn't say anything, but he's slowed his pace to something that John can keep up with, so John will know. After a long silence, a silence long enough that John has probably decided this morning is a running morning, not a talking morning--not that most of their runs involve talking, but sometimes, when Ronon has clearly been trying to run something out, or even just run away, sometimes there's talking then--Ronon says, "I've been thinking about your offer."

John made the offer almost six months earlier, so it's not horribly shocking when John says, "Um. Offer."

Ronon rubs his palm against his hip for the barest flash of a second.

"Ah."

It takes a long time for Ronon to ask, "Is it still open?"

It does not take a long time for John to answer, "Yes."

 

*

Later, when they're not in the halls, when there's nobody to see them or hear them, Ronon says, "You'd have to show me what you wanted."

John tilts his head. "It's your mark."

Ronon shakes his head, but he's unsure of how to explain to John exactly what he wants from this. It's not a mark of possession, not really. Ronon doesn't know how to possess John, doesn't really want to, that's not how things go between the two of them.

It's a beacon. A promise. An if-I-lose-you, I-will-find-you.

"Ronon," John says.

"It's not for me," Ronon tries.

John thinks about that. "Is it for me?"

Ronon nods.

"Yours was for you," John tells him.

"So I could know where I fit," Ronon says.

"Yes."

"You know where you fit. I need you to know where I fit."

"I already--"

"I need you to see it, or feel it. If you can't hear it. If I'm not there." Not that Ronon can get himself to say it all that often anyway, but John will get it.

He does. "And you want me to choose it?"

"I want you to be comfortable with it." The irony of marking, Ronon has found, is that the eventual comfort far surpasses the necessary pain of it. He makes himself not put a hand to his hip, forces himself not to smile.

"I don't think you're going to hurt me," John says, and Ronon wonders if that's the first time either of them has ever admitted that to the other aloud.

Ronon just looks at him. He thinks, _I won't_ , but he doesn't say it.

John sighs. "All right. I'll come up with something."

Ronon gives him an amazing blowjob, because it is infinitely easier than saying "thanks."

 

*

Ronon looks at the picture on the screen and asks, "What'd you have to bribe McKay with to get yourself secure access?"

"My ass and a promise of no retaliation from you."

Ronon smirks and continues looking at the picture. "This is what you want."

"Had a girlfriend once who claimed to be able to do pretty amazing things with one of these."

"I don't have girl parts, Sheppard."

"You have a tongue. I think that was the pertinent one."

Ronon has to give it to him, picking a marking that will allow Ronon to provide extra pleasure--particularly given their earlier conversation--is pretty ingenious. Still, this guiche thing seems complicated. "How are we going to do that?"

Because the piercing is in an area where Ronon really, really doesn't want John losing sensation.

John clicks to a different tab. There are instructions laid out. The page is insistent that the metal inserted be either titanium or 18 carrot gold. "You have a plan for getting hold of the necessary stuff?"

"Carson's gonna help out."

Ronon looks over at John. "You talked to the doc? About this?"

"You said to find what I wanted. I found it. There were preparations involved."

"What did you have to promise _him_?"

" _Your_ ass and the promise of no retaliation by me."

That earns John a full laugh. "What did he say?"

"To contact him immediately if there were any problems, and that Pegasus or no, he still believes in doctor-patient confidentiality, also he's Scottish, thank you very much."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"They're not as uptight about the whole boy-on-boy scene."

"Boy-on-boy."

John says, "Well, in our case, perhaps man-on-boy."

Ronon rolls his eyes. There isn't _that_ much of an age difference between them.

"Are you uncomfortable with it?"

"With what you've chosen?"

"Yeah."

"If I was going to tell you to choose, just to--"

John puts a hand on his arm. "Are you?"

Ronon looks once more at the picture, the smooth metal sliding once through the perineum, thinks about the way it would heat against John's skin, how he could tug it slightly with his fingers, make John grunt in that way he does when he doesn't want to beg. "No."

He thinks about saying, _I like it,_ but doesn't.

John says, "It'll definitely make me think of you."

"Good," Ronon growls, and presses his palm over John's still-clothed erection.

 

*

Ronon has read the directions over and over and even made himself talk with Beckett about the procedure, which was awkward and something he would never have done if not for the idea of metal sliding in his mouth along skin, John's skin.

Sometimes sex is not just sex, even if Ronon has no intention of admitting he knows this to anyone. Not even John.

So he is well-versed when it comes to the point of needle and skin and John looking up at him patiently, but somehow, unlike the training he depends on when life and death come perilously--if regularly--close, that knowledge only makes him want to pause.

Finally John says, "Okay, to be honest, getting this over with would be better for me."

Ronon says, "I think you're going to have to order me."

"That's a little fucked up, even for you."

"Yeah."

"Ronon, I asked if you wanted--"

Ronon brings his head up so that their eyes meet.

"Jesus, buddy." John sits up then, which doesn't really further their purpose, but Ronon doesn't fight him when John pulls him back down with him so that Ronon's head rests on John's shoulder, rising and falling with each breath. "At some point, you gotta stop fighting the stuff you want so hard, y'know? You're going to run out of energy sooner or later."

Ronon knows. He feels tired more often than he should.

"You won't hurt me."

Ronon snorts.

"Well, I mean. Okay. But not _hurt_ hurt."

There are millions of different ways to hurt someone, and most of them Ronon wouldn't even know how to do to John, despite understanding them with crystalline perfection. But in the end he still thinks, "Maybe I shouldn't have asked."

"I wanted you to."

"I know," Ronon says.

"Is that why--"

"A little."

"Then--"

"It wasn't all for you."

John is silent for a bit. "Okay."

Ronon tries to explain that John is not like those who have marked him before and there needs to be some sort of differentiation, something Ronon can see, because Ronon believes his eyes--at least when there aren't Wraith involved, and it's significant that there _aren't_ here. He comes up with, "I'm just part of this."

"Yes," John says, which is different than "yeah," Ronon has learned.

"I still need the order."

"Put the piercing in, Ronon."

Ronon lifts himself off John, and takes up the needle. He re-sanitizes it, just in case. He takes a breath.

John says, "Now, Specialist."

There's blood and John's body tightens but he doesn't make a sound, and it's quick, surprisingly quick but not really quick enough for Ronon. When he's done, when it's clean and bandaged and his hands have been washed, he slides them into John's and asks, "John?"

John says, "It's gonna be a bitch to wait out the month until we can have fun with it."

"Beckett said six weeks is really better."

"I have Wraith on my trail, you really think a piercing is going to be the thing to take me down?"

"What I think is that I don't want to see your cock become infected and fall off."

"I'm pretty sure that was just Carson fucking with your head."

"He respects that I could kill him with my little finger."

"Don't underestimate his sneakiness."

"John?"

"Yeah?"

Ronon presses his palm to John's heart, his lips to the line of John's jaw and John says, "Good job."

That's all it takes for Ronon to fall asleep.

 

 


End file.
